


Unspeakable Love

by scribblingfairytale



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Despair, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Longing, Loss, Love, Reader-Insert, Sadness, Unrequited Love, aching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1560419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblingfairytale/pseuds/scribblingfairytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are in Erwin´s office. Waiting.<br/>It´s been already a while since you entered it and still Erwin hadn´t said anything to you. But that was okay.<br/>Because the silence says more than a thousand words...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspeakable Love

There is a hidden secrecy in a silence. It can say more than a thousand words.

  
No one is listening to the stories these days told by the silence. Although it takes only patience and will to hear it. Hear what words can´t express.

Hear the feelings somebody has. What bothers a person.

                                    

Only by listening you can learn so much about a single human being. Or even about a group of people.

 

From man to man the stories being told are different. And what is said depends on the current situation or if another person is there. If one feeling is overwhelming someone.  
Each silence sounds different, but in a story there are all of them at once. So it is important to listen carefully and trying to see the contrasts. Only then it is possible to hear all facets of the story.  
To understand it fully.

 

Since I´ve been back from the last expedition together with the Survey Corps I started listening. And what I heard, and learned, made me wonder. Why haven´t I listened before that, too?  
Why have I been so blind? Or rather deaf?

 

Slowly I started to understand the soldiers around me better. Understood why they are acting this or that way. Why some are quieter or others cheerful. And I also learned a bit more about Levi.  
Although he is difficult to read. Even his silence.

 

Right now I decided to stay quiet as well. So that I can listen.  
To the story the person in front of me might tell.

I´m in a big office, it´s even bigger than Levi´s. On the right side are shelves filled with old books. A sofa is somewhere there too. A red carpet leads from the door to a desk placed in front of the window.  
Outside there is only darkness. Not even the stars are shining.

 

It´s been a long day. A long week.

 

During the last expedition some things happened that had made everything worse. That caused a lot of loss. And grief.

For the first time in years all of us received vacation. A moment of peace.  
But it´s not easy finding it. The memories are still so clear and cruel in the soldier’s minds making it hard to rest. To forget everything.

 

Some candles are giving light to the room creating dark shadows on the walls and on the face of the man sitting in front of me. With every flicker the shadows are in a different position as if dancing to an unknown song.

 

The man has blond hair that is neatly slicked back, so it would never be in his vision. He is a handsome man and even while sitting it is clear that he is very tall.

His brows are slightly furrowed in concentration and his lips pressed together in a thin line. The azure blue eyes of him are narrowed, gaze directed downwards. Since I entered the office he didn´t stop scribbling down words on the papers lying on the desk. Once in a while he just read a report, but immediately turned back to writing when he was done.

 

It is the Commander of the Survey Corps. Erwin Smith.

A man of high rank within the Survey Corps. A man with a lot of responsibility. Even the hope of humanity is resting in him. On the other hand he also causes a lot of death. Not many people are found of him, mainly because they don´t approve the idea of the Survey Corps.  
Though we are the ones fighting for humanity´s freedom. And Erwin is a man who´d done a lot for it so far. People should be thankful to have such a good, trustful leader who´s able to block out his feelings in order not to demoralize his soldiers.

 

My gaze wanders from his hand flying over the white paper back to his eyes. There is a feeling visible in them which probably no one had ever seen in them before. And no one ever will.

I can´t quite name which feeling has been breaking through his composed look he always uses to wear.

Is it sadness? Fatigue? Despair?  
Or just an endless helplessness?

 

The way the corners of his mouth are slightly drawn downwards fortifies that there is seemingly something bothering the mind of the Commander. Even the grip around his pen tightens from time to time. A heavy burden is lying on his shoulders and the last expedition deprived him of his hope a bit. And took something important for him away. Literally robbed it.

 

But what is it?

 

Many soldiers had been talking about the Commander the last days. Even Levi had expressed his concern. Something was going on with the Commander. And it seemed to be something everybody knew about. Except me.

Why did no one tell me when I asked them? Why didn´t he tell me?

 

I am already sitting here in his office for some hours and neither I nor he had said a single word so far. I even forgot the reason why he wanted me to meet him in his office.

He hadn´t made a single move, only placing the sheets he´d been writing on one upon the other until a little stack was created.

 

As I am about to look away from him and start to ask myself again why I was here, Erwin suddenly moves in his chair. He places the pen down and grabs the stack of papers pinning them together. Then he grasps his pen again while he holds the stack up in the air with his other hand.  
Guess he´s still thinking that I´m standing in front of the window watching the sun.

 

But the sun is long gone.

 

His brows are furrowing more as he doesn´t feel someone grabbing the paper and pulling at it announcing him that he could let go of it. Confusion, puzzlement is flickering in his eyes before he eventually looks up.

My (e/c) eyes are meeting the azure blue one´s of him.

 

A feeling starts to creep into my heart as soon as his eyes locked with mine. I am sinking into the blue of those eyes finding myself drowning in them. Everything around me stops existing, only he and this ocean is what counts. He places the papers and his pen down, but I don´t see it. I don´t hear it.

 

The only thing I see is him. And the feeling in his eyes.

 

My heart starts to skip a beat. But the feeling that had been starting to fill it is immediately replaced by a pain. A pain I don´t know where it comes from. Why it is even there.

And I´m finding myself not only drowning in those eyes but also in the pain.

 

Erwin´s eyes slightly widen and soon a new feeling shows up in them driving away the one that had been there as his eyes had met mine. I don´t know what it was, but now there is sadness visible in them. As if he had given up.

 

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again everything is gone. His composed look is back.

I´m still confused about what happened right now, still trying to grasp the feelings in my heart. Slowly my heartbeat decreases again leaving only the pain behind. And I even feel a bit lightheaded.

 

What had just happen to me?

 

My gaze wanders down as my thoughts are starting to circle in my head. I hear the chair moving on the ground and footsteps going around the desk. They are stopping right in front of me and I can see the boots of Erwin in my vision.

 

Somehow I´m afraid to look up. Afraid to realize what was going on here.

What was going on with me.

 

Ruffling of paper reached my ears and soon I see a stack of papers right in front of me. I´m looking up only to see Erwin leaning against the desk and holding the stack he had in his hands just moments ago out to me. He waits patiently for me to take it. It seems as if it is important that I would see this.  
That I would read this.

 

Hesitantly I eventually grab the stack and look down on Erwin´s neatly handwriting. Most of the pages contain the names of the soldiers who died during the expedition. None of them seems familiar. The last three pages list the soldiers who are missing since the expedition. Though it´s most likely that they are dead, too. And again I haven´t heard any of the names before.

 

At the very ending of the last paper only one name had been written down. Above it stands the headline _‘badly injured during the expedition’_. Right under it is a name I know.  
It is my name.

 

Brows furrowing in confusion I´m looking up again. The eyes of Erwin are telling me that that what I saw is true. That I had been injured during the expedition. And again there crept this sadness into his eyes. As if he cursed himself for what happened.

 

I try to smile. Try to tell him that it isn´t his fault. That everything is alright.  
  
Nothing is alright. Tears suddenly glisten in his eyes as he looks down on me. My eyes widen. And immediately tears are welling up inside me as well. I don´t know why, but seeing him so miserably sad makes me unhappy as well. Guilt, the pain I felt prior, floats through my body.  
Seeing this despair and the tears in his eyes makes my heart heavy. It rips it into pieces.

 

Soon the tears are streaming down my face. I curse myself, because I sense that I am the one making him unhappy, although I can´t tell the reason why. A sad smile crosses his face as he sees me in this state.  
Determination is mixed into his sadness as he reaches out his had to touch my cheek.

 

The guilt inside me grows only more as something else shows up in his eyes. Feelings I had only heard in books about so far. I thought something like this wasn´t existing. It doesn´t fit into the cruel world we are living in.

 

My heart is aching. The tears are still streaming down my face. And I can sense that this makes it only worse. Erwin´s other hand is balled into a fist but it couldn´t hide how much he is trembling. How much he is suffering through my actions.

 

I have the urge to help him. To ease his pain. But how? I don´t know what exactly causes all of this, so how helping him?

Suddenly he leans forward. The closer he gets the better I can look him in the eyes.  
And I start to see in that azure blue of his eyes something else. A second color can be seen in them.  
It makes my heart tighten even more in my chest, because it seems so familiar.

 

Erwin doesn´t stop as our noses are already touching. His breath brushes over my skin sending a shiver down my spine. Soon his lips are on mine. My eyes widen and I stiffen at the unexpected contact. But moments later I start to relax and melt into the kiss. Closing my eyes I´m trying to order my thoughts, trying to grasp what I am feeling.

 

There are only the tears rolling down my cheeks. I can taste the salt of it. But as I look inside myself… I only feel the guilt overwhelming myself. And an endless sadness I´ve never felt before.

 

As he departs from the kiss my hands are clinging to his shirt. I have no idea how they have found their way there and why I am doing this. But his actions had showed me something. Made me realize what his silence had tried to tell me all time long.

 

That he **loves** me. So deeply that he isn´t able to put this into words. There is no other way for him than showing it through his actions. Through looking me in the eyes.

 

And I curse myself even more as tears are leaving the corners of his eyes. Cursing myself that I see his love, feel it all around me. But I feel **nothing**.

And he can see this.

 

He starts to tremble even more and a sob is shaking through his body. Though it doesn´t escape his lips. I´m pulling him down to me. Feel his arms engulfing me in a warm embrace.  
As if I´m the one who needs to be hushed. Who needs to be comforted.

 

Pressing my eyes tightly shut I´m leaning against his broad chest my hands still holding on his shirt firmly. I´m afraid that he would break down in front of me as soon as I let go of him.

And all this just because of me…

 

The love remains around me. Erwin remains. He´s so close and I am feeling myself so far away from him. I sense that this love is familiar. That it is already there for years. That he´d never felt differently.

 

My heart is falling apart as I´m holding on him. I am not able to take his love. Not able to give it back to him. Not able to feel the same.

 

Because I can´t remember to have ever felt this before. Can´t remember to have been at his side for many years. Can´t remember the moments we shared together.

 

I can remember everything except our love.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that is one of my fanfictions I´ve written a while ago. It´s been a gift for a friend and was inspired by this beautiful picture: http://fav.me/d78h0j8
> 
> I hope I captured the feelings I´ve wanted to put into this good and you can feel how much I´ve been suffering while writing it. My heart still aches every time I´m rereading it.  
> And sorry for any mistakes they might still be in there ^^; My English is not that perfect...


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